Il bacio is an 1859 painting

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 by the Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 Francesco Hayez

Francesco Hayez

Francesco Hayez was an Italian painter, the leading artist of Romanticism in mid-19th-century Milan, renowned for his grand historical paintings, political allegories and exceptionally fine portraits.-Biography:...

. It is possibly his best known work. This painting conveys the main features of Italian Romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

 and has come to represent the spirit of the Risorgimento.

Description

The painting represents a couple from the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, embracing while they kiss each other. It is among the most passionate and intense representations of a kiss in the history of western art. The girl leans backwards, while the man bends his left leg so as to support her, simultaneously placing a foot on the step next to him as though poised to go at any moment. The couple, though at the center of the painting, are not recognizable, as Hayez wanted the action of the kissing to be at the center of the composition. In the left part of the canvas shadowy forms lurk in the corner to give an impression of conspiracy and danger.

Interpretation

This painting has been regarded as a symbol of Italian Romanticism, as it encompasses many features of it. At a more superficial level, the painting is the representation of a passionate kiss, so putting itself in accordance with the principles of Romanticism, by emphasising deep feelings rather than rational thought, and presenting a reinterpretation and reevaluation of the Middle Ages in a patriotic and nostalgic key.

On a deeper level, the painting aims to portray the spirit of the Risorgimento. The man wears red, white and green, representing the Italian patriots fighting for independence from the Austro-Hungarian empire. The girl's pale blue dress signifies France, which in 1859 (the year of the painting's creation) made an alliance with the Kingdom of Piedmont and Sardinia

Kingdom of Sardinia

The Kingdom of Sardinia consisted of the island of Sardinia first as a part of the Crown of Aragon and subsequently the Spanish Empire , and second as a part of the composite state of the House of Savoy . Its capital was originally Cagliari, in the south of the island, and later Turin, on the...

 enabling the latter to unify the many states of the Italian peninsula into the new kingdom of Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

.

Curiosities

The Kiss has enjoyed extensive popularity from its exhibition onward, especially in Italy, and has been the subject of much commentary. In the 1920s the art director of Perugina

Perugina

Perugina is an Italian confectionery company based in Perugia, Italy.The company was formed in 1907 by Giovanni Buitoni and Luisa Spagnoli, a confectioner in her own right, in the town of Perugia, in central Italy....

, one of Italy's leading chocolate manufacturer, revised the image of the painting and created the typical blue box of the Baci

Baci

Baci is an important ceremony practiced in Lao culture and Northern and Isan Thai culture....

 with the picture of two lovers. In 1954 the great Italian director Luchino Visconti

Luchino Visconti

Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo was an Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films The Leopard and Death in Venice .-Life:...

 took inspiration from the painting for one of the leading scenes of his masterpiece movie, Senso

Senso (film)

Senso is a 1954 melodrama film, an adaptation of Camillo Boito's Italian novella Senso by the Italian director Luchino Visconti, with Alida Valli as Livia and Farley Granger as Lieutenant Franz Mahler....

.

external links

• The Kiss Digital reproduction to more than four million pixels.